Thomas Bakhap

Thomas Jerome Kingston Bakhap (29 October 1866 – 18 August 1923) was an Australian politician.

He was born in Ballarat, Victoria, the adoptive son of a Chinese immigrant, Bak Hap.

[1] He received no formal education but became a shopworker, and was later a tin miner at Lottah, Tasmania.

[2] In 1913, he transferred to federal politics, winning a Tasmanian Senate seat as a member of the Commonwealth Liberal Party.

He visited China in 1922[5] as a representative of the Australian government, and by that time was recognised as the parliament's pre-eminent expert in Chinese and South-East Asian affairs.